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In Reply to: RE: Do you typically hear a difference between high res. and 44.1/16? posted by Norm on February 15, 2010 at 08:42:47
I agree, that's why I bother to post this piece.
IMO, I have *rarely* felt I've heard a difference between hi-res or 16/44. My main system at home "only" costs about $10,000 but even when I go to show rooms with >$30K systems, I stick in CD's of music I've burned or listen to their SACD/DVD-A, I usually cannot tell the difference, and even if I do, it seems to be mastering differences. The only exception was one time about 5 years ago I repeatedly could hear more detail on the cymbals in Telarc's 1812 SACD vs. RedBook layer through my friend's Sony SCD-1 and Merlin speakers. (Is there a good 24/96 1812 I can test out?)
When I read folks here talking about the seemingly miraculous differences, I think to myself either I'm crazy or my ears must be bad. Yet family and friends must have bad ears too because no matter who I have listen with me (unless they know about hi-rez disk vs. regular), they usually don't comment on anything different or can't seem to tell a difference either (many are musicians and 'audiophiles').
It just seems to me that the folks who claim to hear differences attributable to higher sampling rate / bit depth are few and far between, yet tout this experiential difference as if gospel.
Follow Ups:
he just doesn't have the ability to hear the difference. Many people don't have trained ears or hearing sensitive to discern the differences. Just like many people don't have a palate that is trained/sensitive enough to discern the differences between vintages of wine.
You might be right...
However, I'd like to know if you've tried for yourself; cuz if you have and there is a significant difference, I'd sure like to better my abilities with some tips.
it's the e-mu.
If you listen to the tonal quality of most music you may not hear the difference between 44.1 and higher sampling rates. Depending on the filters used the high frequencies can be dulled, made edgy, or preserved at the expense of the soundstaging. If you aren't listening to the right thing at the right time it may be very hard to notice a difference. Even if you are focused in on a real difference you may still miss it, because the mind plays tricks. For example, if a particular sound can be heard in one format but not the other, when switching back and forth the mind may fill in the missing pieces, thereby making both versions sound the same.
Hearing the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit resolution will be very difficult on music that has little dynamic range or lots of background noise. Similarly, hearing the difference will be difficult if your system isn't resolving in bit depth and has low noise. Also, if your room isn't quiet any subtle low level differences may be masked. If you listen to acoustic music recorded in a reverberant room (e.g. a well recorded symphony orchestra) you may be able to hear anomalies in the reverberation tails as the music dies out.
If you were to use an editor extensively and downsample many hi-res recordings at a variety of settings you might (eventually) become clued into the subtle differences involved. If you buy a RBCD that has been reduced to 44/16 by a skilled mastering engineer most people will not notice a large difference for most musical genres.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Thanks for the wise words Tony.
Will definitely need to log more hours listening to build up skills to appreciate the nuances... Certainly not a bad thing :-)
I have limited experience at home, but in the Reference Sampler provided by Weiss with the Minerva, on some the symphonic pieces I really hear more information and locational information. When I have checked high definition sites, I find little that tempts me. But I now have the capability to download hi-def. I must say, however, that I am on a DSL access, so downloads might take all night.
Overall, I do not find hi-def. equal to the improvement I hear between a computer server and an optical transport.
Any way to verify if those reference samplers used the same mastering on the hi-res vs. non-hi-res? That's I think one of the main problems. I find I can't trust that I'm listening to the same source / mix say between the SACD vs. Red Book layer when trying to make comparisons.
There have already been many suspicions about the Red Book layers being purposefully degraded in order to sell us on the merits of hi-res.
As far as I am concerned the only way to assure a consistent test of formats is to do the mastering yourself, i.e. start with a single hi-res version and down sample it to a lower res format. That way you know the source of all differences you may hear. This also allows you to experiment with the various settings of SRCs, i.e. when you place the 10 pounds of hi-res music into the 5 pound RBCD bag you get to select which portions get discarded.
If you compare professionally mastered versions then you will not be able to separate out decisions made by the mastering engineer and characteristics of his equipment from limitations of the format. This will be true even if both versions were done by the same engineer using the same equipment. As one example, if the engineer has a "hot" monitor with excessive high frequency response he will be biased toward smooth anti-alias filters with gradual roll off and away from heavy noise shaping, whereas he may favor other trade offs when using monitors with rolled off high frequency response.
It is also a good idea to place little faith in anything you hear on a strange system. It's best to do comparisons using equipment and a room that you know well, in which you have hundreds (or thousands) of hours of listening experience using a wide range of recordings. Finally, for various reasons (technical or otherwise) there may be gain differences across versions. If you compare two versions of the same recording at levels that differ by more than about 0.1 dB there is a good chance that psycho-acoustic factors will distort the results.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
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